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It had been a long day for the young female, and she suspected that it probably wasn't going to be getting any better for her anytime soon. It had been just another walk through the forest (although she had been told repeatedly that the forest was off limits to the younger lions) and yet, it had ended in what she would suffice to say was a rather diastorous outcome.

She had managed to limp her way back out, and lay beneath the shade of a tree with one paw cradled against her chest. Her face looked somewhat stricken with pain, although she could do nothing for it, and certainly couldn't walk far enough to find someone to aid her. As the sun dipped lower on the horizon, she watched it with a growing unease. She didn't want to be left out past sundown, though it was an hour or more away, but she couldn't fathom how she would get back home. Where was her silly father when she needed him?

"Don't go too far," Shula purred at her son as she lay sprawled out in the high grasses. She had choosen to rest a little now, so that when Jangwa'waridi slept she could go hunting for them.

"Okaaayy," grumbled the young lion, not even passing a glance back at his mother and he jumped forward into the brush. He liked traveling with his mom a lot...he always got to see a lot of cool new things, plus by going to new places he could find new herbs. His mother's rules weren't something he'd brag about, but he usually forgot his discontent soon enough.

He gathered leaves and roots of plants as he walked, trying to name them as he found them, though often he completely jumpled the letters and sounds up or slurred them together. Oh well. As long as he knew what they all did it didn't matter much...right?

There was a specific plant he wanted to find that his grandma said only grew in the shade of trees. So of course the young lion looked for the nearest tree. Seeing it he raced forward, not even noticing someone else was already there and sorta in his way.

The rather brightly pelted lioness saw the male before he saw her, apparently, though she supposed it could be attributed to the fact that she was curled up in the shade. What his intentions were were unknown to her, but she didn't feel quite in the mood to put up with some random boy coming towards her at full speed when she was injured and cranky. Regardless of whether or not he saw her, she intended to make it quite obvious that she was indeed there.

With a growl, her ears flattened back, her body pushing her back towards the tree trunk behind her. She cradled her hurt paw against her chest, looking as angry and threatening as she possibly could. It was the sheer fact that she was afraid and hurt, she was sure, and it all came by way of natural instinct. She didn't want him near her if he intended to do something bad.

At a funny sound-was it supposed to be a growl?-Ridi jerked his head sideways, ears jumping forward. The motion sent leaves flying out of his teeth and his grunt of horror was soon cut off as he went tumbling forward tripping over who knows what. "Ugh ugh, ooff!" After a couple of rolls his body crashed to a hault, his face resting in the dirt. Great.

"Ugh, yuck!" he grumbled, spitting dirt from his mouth as he rolled over to right himself. Butt in the air, his body still tilted sideways with out front paw out and another pulled under him, he finally saw her and stopped. Sulky confusion flashed across his face and he then slowly looked over his shoulder warily. But there weren't any monsters there. He then looked back at her, and murmured very intellegently, "Hu?"

Her growl had slackened immediately as she saw him begin to tumble towards her. She scrunched up closer to the tree trunk, most of her weight supported on her back legs as she leaned into it. One eyes squeezed shut as she forced the other to stay partially open, head turned a little away even as she watched. As he skidded to a hault, in a very strange position no less, she shifted so she was putting weight again on her good front paw. She simply stared for a moment at him, then a small smirk crossed her mug. It served him right for scaring her.

"Have a good trip?" she asked rather snarkily, her injured paw still held off the ground. She wasn't normally such a grouch pot, or mean otherwise, but her hurt paw combined with sitting there for hours hoping her family would find her had attributed to her rather crappy mood.

She watched him gather the leaves back together, even closer as he began to shift through them with some sort of agenda plainly written across his face. So curious was she that she didn't even bother to say anything snide about the fact that he'd done what she had before. Though, in the back of her mind, she noted that he must have been a clumsy sort, given what he had just done in front of her as well.

"What is it?" she said with a baffled frown as he settled the leaf in front of her. Then, of course, she realized how ridiculous that sounded - she knew it was a leaf. "I mean, what sort of leaf is it? Why will it.. help?" She frowned at her own stupidity, leaning down to sniff at the leaf before glancing back up at him curiously.

"Um...uhhhh...." He blinked and frowned, fishing around in his mind for a name he knew he had heard many times. The problem was...he just wasn't good at memorizing things like that. If he understood how something worked he remembered it, but simple facts like names or numbers just didn't...stick.

"I don't remember what it's called," he mumbled, "Re...something, maybe? Um..." He shook his head, brushing the matter aside. It wasn't important, right? "It dulls pain. I might have...um...something for muscles too, if that's what you think you pulled in your paw."

She furrowed her brows at him with vaguely narrowed eyes as he stammered on, obviously not quite aware of the name of the plant. How on earth could he know what it did if he didn't even know what it was called? With a frown and a vague flicker of her tail, she tried to understand the logic behind it, though there really seemed to be little. With a sigh, she shrugged her shoulders and leaned down to take the leaf in her maw - chewing it down (with a grimace to boot) and swallowing.

"I don't.. know what I did to it. It just hurts," she said matter-of-factly, licking her maw in an attempt to get rid of the bitter taste of the leaf. She trusted him, simply because she didn't have a choice. He was the only one around.

"Can I feel it?" he asked tactlessly, his eyes focused on her injury. He was starting to lean forward too, paying very little attention to their close proximity. He reached out with a paw before she could answer, slowly lifting it and bringing it closer and closer to her limp one.

She hesitated at his words, frowning still, her eyes shifting up to look at him with what was obvious unease. She had no choice, really. She sighed and lay her paw out in front of her instead of cradling it to his chest, wincing her eyes in anticipation of the pain.

She simply frowned at his mumbled response, wondering what about her thanks had caused him to be so shy all of a sudden. Regardless, her ears perked at his talk of leaving, and her mouth opened and closed worriedly. If he left, she'd be alone again, and who knew when someone else might come along? She could be stuck here all night!

"Well, uh," she started, chewing at the inside of her cheek in a nervous gesture. "I was wondering if you might.. help me get back home?" She frowned, tail flickering. "I mean, I can't walk by myself very well, and you're the only other I've seen for.. hours.." She trailed off, looking at him hopefully.

"Hu?" He stared at her as if her ears had turned insideout. "What do you mean you can't walk? What's wrong with your other three legs?" He might be good with herbs, but that didn't mean he was an expert healer...far from it, at least for now. Besides, he had run around on three legs loads of times...granted he had fallen a lot, but he didn't really think about it not being a pleasant experience for her. He was a bit lacking in common sense.

She frowned at him, narrowing her eyes slightly and lashing her tail behind her. A lot of the land was marshy and wet from the rains - near the forest, here, it wasn't so bad as there were plenty of trees to soak it up. It was farther out, where her mother's den was, that it was truly messy.

"I can't walk on three legs well at all, and the land is wet away from the forest," she said with a small pout, slightly irritated with his slowness. He couldn't be blamed for not realizing that the lands were messy and had to navigate after the rains, but she still wanted to give him a thump.

Ridi sighed, mumbling something under his breath taht sounded vaguely like "there's no way I'm gonna carry you". He shook his head, wondering in his head why he always felt like he was stuck with the grunt work. But then, at this age anything he didn't really want to do seemed like grunt work.

"Fine," he mumbled, "You can lean on me or whatever." He picked up all his leaves, situated them squarely in his mouth, and then scooted over to her side.

She flickered her ears at him as she heard him mumble, though she couldn't figure out exactly what it was that he had said. It didn't sound exactly pleased, so she assumed it had something to do with the fact that he didn't want to help her. Well, he could just get over that, as far as she was concerned. She needed to get home and he was just unfortunate eough to be the only one to find her.

"What did you think I was going to make you do, carry me?" she said with a bit of a sigh, pushing herself up onto her good three paws. She the shoulder connected to her bad paw against him, testing the stability before nodding off to their west. "I live that way."